Vehicles are increasingly becoming more autonomous. That is, vehicles are beginning to perform tasks that an occupant would normally perform without any occupant interaction. Levels of autonomy for vehicles have been defined with level zero generally indicating no automation up to level four or five, which may refer to a fully autonomous vehicle where an individual need only specify a destination to which the fully autonomous vehicle is to drive.
Currently, most production vehicles fall between levels zero and five. Mid-level (e.g., levels two through three) autonomous vehicles may perform some tasks normally performed by an occupant when operating the vehicle using adaptive cruise control, providing lane monitoring, and performing automated crash avoidance (usually by applying the breaks), etc.
In mid-level autonomous vehicles and even in fully autonomous (e.g., level four or five) vehicles, when problems arise for which the vehicle is not equipped to handle, the autonomous vehicle may perform a single default action by which to transition control of the vehicle back to the occupant. The occupant may then operate the vehicle until the problem has been overcome.